The three are sent to an otataral mine off the coast of the continent of the Seven Cities, where Felisin offers her body to the slaves’ self-appointed leader Beneth in exchange for protection for the trio, and becomes addicted to narcotic durhang. I normally don't mind work in a fantasy book, indeed I kind of expect it as you get the world built out before you, so that it all culminates is some epic payoff. Erikson didn’t hold back with his punches, and I envisioned any newcomer to this book will definitely feel heart-wrenched and mesmerized. Maybe I am being dense, but this is the second of his books that I have read, and I have the pervasive feeling as I progress through this series that I am missing something important, but I can’t put my finger on what precisely that is. On our site, you can find not only book reviews but author interviews, cover reveals, excerpts from books, acquisition announcements, guest posts by your favourite authors, and so much more.

I feel like some of these are probably answered in the book but listening to it makes it difficult to understand the heavy lore drops. Perhaps feeling slightly guilty about abducting her, then possessing her, then forcing her to commit brutal acts of murder in Gardens of the Moon, the Patron of Assassins now appears to have taken on the role of kindly uncle to the knife-artist formerly known as Sorry. Mappo fears that the Azath will take Icarium, which the Nameless Ones who chose him to guard Icarium would favor.

Icarium senses his hesitation and tells Mappo he would die for him, and Mappo tells Icarium the truth about the First Empire city. Coltaine insists that Duiker keep the bottle Dujek sent him because it is more important that the empire's memory survive than its soldiers. Kalam reaches Laseen's audience chamber where she's concealed, as he accuses her of killing the Bridgeburners deliberately (she denies it), outlawing Dujek (it's a ruse), killing Dassem Ultor (true but he threatened civil war), killing Dancer and Kellenvad (true but the Empire required it), and incompetence in the Seven Cities (revenge is afoot); he leaves after hearing her defense. As fantasy fiction is so fond of reminding us, however, appearances can be deceiving; if something glitters, it could be gold or it could just as easily be a turd rolled in glitter; and not all that is green is a Hulk.

Felisin makes acquaintance with Baudin, a thug, and Heboric, an excommunicated High Priest of Fener, a war god, who has been punished by the removal of his hands. However, in this instance I found that the complexity of the narrative was a bit too much to handle. Coltaine's warlocks, led by Sormo E’nath, defeat a Semk tribal god by loosing the spirits of the land against it. Like all such weak, noble-born rulers with no idea what to do with their power and privilege, Pormqual surrounds himself with individuals who he can trust to help him make wise decisions tell him all the things he wants to hear.

Kalam meets Salk Elan to learn that the Ragstopper and the whole Aren fleet has been impounded and Admiral Nok arrested by Pormqual, who plans to flee by sea.

Duiker is the Malazan Imperial Historian, which sounds like a position involving a fair amount of prestige. En route to the coast, Heboric finds an enormous jade pillar that turns out to be merely the finger of an enormous figure, and touches it with his stumps of hands, which draws his god Fener into the mortal realm. Among the most memorable plotlines is the journey of Coltaine, a Malazan commander guiding a host of refugees through hostile desert lands. While you might be a wee bit disappointed to find so few familiar faces in Deadhouse Gates, I can assure you that the likes of Rake, Brood, Tool, Whiskeyjack and Quick Ben will be back in book three, Memories of Ice, where they’ll mingle with some of the epic personalities you’re about to meet.

The two are caught up in a battle between and amongst Soletaken and D’ivers, shapeshifters who can take the form of one other beast or many beasts, respectively, to follow the Path of Hands to Tremorlor, an Azath House in the Holy Desert Raraku, that may offer Ascendency and ultimately godhood. The interior of Tremorlor is like a map of all Azath Houses, and Pust and then Icarium and Mappo disappear to other parts of the world. First released in 2000 in Great Britain and Canada, it was published by Tor in 2005 for the United States. Set in a brilliantly-realized world ravaged by anarchy and dark, uncontrollable magic, Deadhouse Gates is the thrilling, brutal second chapter in the Malazan Book of the Fallen.